cheer you, then remember that that second peace of exhaustion will not
last either. In due course will come the final collapse.”
“How do you know?” Flandry demanded.
“The cycle fills the history, yes, the archeology of this whole planet
we are sitting on. Old China and older Egypt each went thrice through
the whole sorry mess. The Western civilization to which ours is
affiliated rose originally from the same kind of thing, that Roman
Empire some of our rulers have liked to hark back to for examples of
glory. Oh, we too shall have our Diocletian; but scarcely a hundred
years after his reconstruction, the barbarians were camping in Rome
itself and making emperors to their pleasure. My own ancestral
homeland–but there is no need for a catalogue of forgotten nations. For
a good dozen cases we have chronicles detailed to the point of nausea;
all in all, we can find over fifty examples just in the dust of this one
world.
“Growth, until wrong decisions bring breakdown; then ever more ferocious
wars, until the Empire brings the Pax; then the dissolution of that Pax,
its reconstitution, its disintegration forever, and a dark age until a
new society begins in the ruins. Technic civilization started on that
road when the Polesotechnic League changed from a mutual-aid
organization of free entrepreneurs to a set of cartels. Tonight we are
far along the way.”
“You’ve discovered this yourself?” Flandry asked, not as skeptically as
he could have wished he were able to.
“Oh, no, no,” Desai said. “The basic analysis was made a thousand years
ago. But it’s not comfortable to live with. Prevention of breakdown, or
recovery from it, calls for more thought, courage, sacrifice than humans
have yet been capable of exercising for generation after generation.
Much easier first to twist the doctrine around, use it for
rationalization instead of rationality; then ignore it; finally suppress
it. I found it in certain archives, but you realize I am talking to you
in confidence. The Imperium would not take kindly to such a description
of itself.”
“Well–” Flandry drank again. “Well, you may be right. And total
pessimism does have a certain bracing quality. If we’re doomed to tread
out the measure, we can try to do so gracefully.”
“There is no absolute inevitability.” Desai puffed for a minute, his
cigarette end a tiny red pulsar. “I suppose, even this late in the game,
we could start afresh if we had the means–more importantly, the will.
But in actuality, the development is often aborted by foreign conquest.
An empire in the anarchic phase is especially tempting and especially
prone to suffer invaders. Osmans, Afghans, Moguls, Manchus, Spaniards,
British–they and those like them became overlords of cultures different
from their own, in that same way.
“Beyond our borders, the Merseians are the true menace. Not a barbarian
rabble merely filling a vacuum we have left by our own political
machinations–not a realistic Ythri which sees us as its natural
ally–not a pathetic Gorrazani remnant–but Merseia. We harass and
thwart the Roidhunate everywhere, because we dare not let it grow too
strong. Besides eliminating us as a hindrance to its dreams, think what
a furtherance our conquest would be!
“That’s why I dread the consequences of the Emperor’s departure. Staying
home, working to buttress the government and armed force, ready to stamp
fast on every attempt at insurrection, he might keep us united,
uninvadable, for the rest of his life. Without his presence–I don’t
know.”
“The Merseians would have to be prepared to take quick advantage of any
revolt,” Flandry argued. “Assuming you’re right about your historical
pattern, are they aware of it? How common is it?”
“True, we don’t have the knowledge to say how far it may apply to
nonhumans, if at all,” Desai admitted. “We should. In fact, it was
Merseia, not ourselves, that set me on this research–for the Merseians
too must have their private demons, and think what a weapon it would be
for our diplomacy to have a generalized mechanic for them as well as
us!”
“Hm?” said Flandry, surprised afresh. “Are you implying perhaps they
already are decadent? That’s not what one usually hears.”
“No, it isn’t. But what is decadence to a nonhuman? I hope to do more